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Marquis Scholar Robert Brown ’03 (Liverpool, N.Y.) earned honors in computer science through a project using artificial intelligence to develop a computer network security system.
Graduating summa cum laude at commencement last month, Brown was a member of the Sigma Xi (scientific research) and Upsilon Pi Epsilon (computer science) academic honor societies.
His adviser for the project was Chun Wai Liew, assistant professor of computer science. A former programmer and software developer at several companies, Liew is coauthor of MHDL, a computer language for describing and specifying microwave systems. He regularly shares his research at conferences in his field, with publications last year in conference proceedings of Intelligent Tutoring Systems and the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society.
“I developed an application that utilizes a specialized artificial neural network to filter live network traffic for anomalies,” explains Brown. “The governing idea is that malicious network traffic will be anomalous to normal network activity, and that by recognizing these anomalies the corresponding network attacks can be exposed.”
Malicious network traffic includes any attack on a computer system, such as viruses or people trying to get access to others’ computers.
“A lot of the systems used now look for specific patterns that they match to known attacks,” says Brown. “I found a way to identify new attacks before anyone even knows what they are. The system I am devising will know that something malicious is going on without having to know exactly what it is at first.”
Liew says Brown is a hard worker who conducted his research quickly and needed little direction.
“He’s very self-motivated and intelligent,” Liew says. “The thing that struck me most about him is his independence.”
Brown, who took several classes with Liew, says the professor challenged him both intellectually and personally.
“Professor Liew had an immense influence on my education at Lafayette,” he says. “His open and demanding teaching style transformed many of my standard course requirements into invaluable educational and personal experiences.”
Brown also worked with Liew last year on an interdisciplinary EXCEL Scholars project to construct a web-based Japanese tutoring system. In Lafayette’s EXCEL Scholars program, students work closely with professors while earning a stipend. Many of the more than 160 students who participate each year publish papers in scholarly journals and/or present their research at conferences.
Brown adds that Lafayette provided him with “the ideal environment for academic projects like my thesis and my EXCEL Scholars research.”
“Lafayette is a very strong academic institution, yet remains small, so that individual students can form strong and vital relationships with their professors as well as their peers,” he says. “I believe the kind of opportunities that are common at Lafayette are extremely rare anywhere else.”
Brown also lauds the “close personal professor relationships as well as the availability and encouragement to undertake research.”
Brown played intramural basketball and constructed web sites for a number of clients in the Syracuse area, as well as Lafayette’s Office of the Dean of Studies.